Smithii?
 

Got a new mantis today from a local reefer - Near as I can tell it's a smithii - Has a white trim around dark meral spot. It also has the characteristic red spot at the base of it's uropods

I am a little concerned about my new friend. Look at it's back; one or two plates above the telson - Is this shell disease?

[IMG]http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g168/yankeereefer/DSC02993.jpg[/IMG]

Picture makes it yellower than it is.

I rescued this mantis to some degree - It spent a couple weeks in a bucket with LR being "cooked" - It then went into a prop tank - It didn't have anything to eat per se (it wasn't being fed) as it was not known to be there.

It ravenously devoured some krill when I got it home today -

If I continue to care for this mantis, supplementing it's meals with selcon, reckon' it'll survive the shell disease? Will it "molt" out of it?

I'll try and get better pics later.

Thanks
Yankee

id agree that it looks like G. smithii but Ive never seen a yellow morph before. *shrug*

yup looks like it to me. supplement all meals with selcon. feed every 2 days. leave the lights out. make sure it has everything it needs to make a nice dark burrow. Keep water quality high.

will the frequency of feeding stimulate a molt? - Is it possible that the shell rot go away with the molt?

With the shell disease on my P. Ciliata, I cut the lights down, fed with a supplement, and it molted and shed all visual signs of the disease. Then it slowly started to grow back. It got to the point where it was just as bad as it was when i first got him. Then he molted again, and now there is no visual signs again of it.

I guess what i am trying to say is that when they molt, the shell disease will go away, but it CAN come back. Mine did look a little worse than yours though...

Thanks -

By "cutting the lights down" are you referring to a reduced photoperiod or totally blackout? What about running actinics only or moonlights?

Ryan

I only ran the tank light 7 hours a day or less. I also gave a long PVC pipe to burrow in which the manits used to molt each time. Maybe someone else with more knowledge about what is best for the mantis can better identify how to "cut down the lights".

if the mantis is the only occupant of the tank, then I would leave only the moonlights on but even those don't really matter. Just let the tank be lit with ambient lighting in the room. no actinics. no full spectrum lights either.

once it molts, try to find the old infected exoskeleton and remove it. UV sterilisation also seems to help keep shell rot away after a molt.

The smithii is in a pretty newly setup tank (rock and sand are cycled) -

Didn't have much for rubble so I ran to LFS and bought a quarter pund of LR - Broke it up with a hammer when I got home and put it in around the area where the mantis seems to have settled in.

Now hopefully I can stimulate a molt somehow.....